Captain America, Manchester, set pics

It’s always interesting to see your city become another city. Jon Brady, a camera operator, has been watching the progress on Dale Street.

Dale Street with its canyon of Lower East Side, NYC, look-alike warehouses (although remember the Americans were following our models of warehouse architecture) is getting dressed as a 3344 mile distant US counterpart. This is for the film set of Captain America, the First Avenger, starring, we think, Chris Evans, Samuel L Jackson, Tommy Lee Jones and Natalie Dormer.

Captain America began in 1941 as a fictional character for Marvel Comics. He was the superhero alter ego of Steve Rogers, a weakling who is sharpened into superman proportions by, of course, ‘an experimental serum’ – where is all that stuff lying around?

Made big and strong he then becomes the man-weapon in the USA’s WWII war effort – dressed in a ballet dancer’s outfit of sorts sporting Old Glory. Captain America was intended to be a morale boosting propaganda series of derring-do. The comic-strip succeeded in this admirably and continued on and off for decades after the war.

We’re not sure whether the comics or the movies mention America’s late entry into the war against facism but we’re certain the film will contain lots of bangs and crashes. Some of which it appears will happen in Manchester, on Dale Street, just down from the Marketing Manchester offices and round the corner from Lemmars bar.

Our reader John Brady (www.redlettucecamera.com) has produced a series of Youtube clips documenting the set creation which we’ll add to as he puts up more material.

Click here:for the Youtube clips. There are also a series of excellent stills of the transformation here, some of which we’ve borrowed from hobbsy.com to illustrate this piece.

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Anyway, perhaps we should keep it and offer people a cut price and green alternative to flying across the Atlantic. I'll happily stand behind the bar taking $1 tips for pouring a drink despite the fact it is my job.

I live just behind the set on Hilton Street. I've been walking down to have a nosey over the last few days and I must admit it looks much better as 1940s Brooklyn! There needs to be a renewed impetus on regenerating the Northern Quarter and taking advantage of all the fantastic buildings we have here.

One of the security guards told me that they wanted to remove the white paint from the 'Casa d'Arte' building, but 'the lady from the Council' said they couldn't. So if you look at it carefully, all the brickwork at ground floor level is painted on! They have to paint it white again afterwards.

Had a wander down to the set today, several film crew workies AND police blocking the pavements off. Anyone know who will be paying for that?! Not sure police presence was necessary. Could see some of the set but didn´t see any cameras. The old style street lamps look good!